I don’t think there’s a businesswoman alive who doesn’t dream of putting her feet up, one day, after selling her business. Of finally unwinding, after 18-hour days, checking emails on holiday and heading for your desk on a Sunday afternoon to prepare for a busy week ahead, in order to hit the ground running on Monday morning. I certainly expected to be staring into a few sunsets after my husband and Isold our Green & Black’s brand to Cadbury’s, in 2005. I definitely could have opted to put my feet up after that (albeit, with recent interest rates, not exactly in Eccelstone-esque luxury).

But a funny thing happened. And it happens to many, many entrepreneurs I know. Sure, there must be some who sail off into the aforementioned sunset on a brand new sleek yacht, but far more of us roll our sleeves up and start all over again.

Having tried, for five months, to ‘retire’, I realised that not only was I bored: I was becoming boring. And having switched off the adrenalin (always my drug of choice), it was all I could do to get off my sunlounger. The only way to feel excited and alive again, I realised, was to get back in the business saddle – first, taking over Judges, the sleepy bakery (b. 1926) in our home town, Hastings, turning it organic and putting in a one-stop natural and organic food store. (Which has gone on to win several awards.)

Secondly, creating a nine-room well-being centre (The Wellington Centre) in a run-down council building, putting in a Pilates and yoga studio – setting up something else that I felt my community needed, but was missing. I found myself once again rolling up my sleeves, putting in 18-hour days (albeit with a low point of waking myself up snoring at my own dinner party).

But did I feel ‘alive’ again? With every cell of my being. So alive, in fact, that I also embarked on a busy speaking career, pinballing around the UK and Europe sharing the business lessons I’d learned from growing Green & Black’s.

Josephine at her Wellington Square Natural Health Centre, East Sussex

I now firmly believe that the world is divided into two types of women: those who work to live (and are probably excellent at pension-planning), and those who live to work – and won’t be hitting the golf course anytime soon. I firmly fall into that second group. I have had to deal with ‘concerned’ friends who mutter about the importance of slowing down – but as my old friend and mentorAnita Roddickused to observe, ‘there’s plenty of time for slowing down when you’re dead’.

Did Anita give up work and twiddle her thumbs after selling Body Shop to L’Oréal? Not a bit of it. And though she tragically died way too young, she loved every hard-working moment of helping her brand on its next trajectory. Ditto my colleague Liz Earle, who continues to work for her signature skincare empire, after it’s been absorbed into Avon – and is at the same time setting up an ambitious new charity, LiveTwice. (And rumour is that Liz’s business partner, Kim Buckland, has something exciting up her designer sleeve, too.)

So: I can’t imagine giving up work until I absolutely have to (and take inspiration from the eightysomething matriarch who was still running the chocolate factory that produced Green & Black’s, right until she died). I fully expect (and hope) that when I do keel over, it will be with my boots firmly on. Indeed, I’m in the early stages of another venture, launching next year, which is (like Green & Black’s, theworld’s first organic chocolate) something that’s never done before.

The challenge is what thrills me, drives me, excites me – and gets me out of bed in the morning. So perhaps the most important lesson I’ve learned in business is that work has to be about your passion – not your pension. Because staring at sunsets is all very well. But after a while, even sunsets become boring.

Josephine Fairley is co-founder of Green & Black's Organic Chocolate, growing the brand before its acquisition by Cadbury's. A successful entrepreneur, she also co-founded the series of Beauty Bible books, as well as opening a nine-room well-being centre in her home town of Hastings. She travels widely as an inspirational public speaker and writes for Telegraph Wonder Women on all things business. Follow her on Twitter @jojosams